Manaj goes cold on fiery stage but peace prevails

Missiles were thrown but football was the talking point after Albania and Serbia draw

- Nick Ames

Inside Arena Kombetare, more than 20,000 supporters caught their breaths and trained every last squint of focus on Rey Manaj. Outside, the legions who had flooded into Tirana all day just to be part of things, some queueing at borders before racing to bars and public viewings through the heat, clasped their beers. Albania had been awarded a penalty and nobody cared that it was soft; if Manaj kept his nerve then maybe a football hero could finally be born, the accursed feel around this fixture banished at long last.

Manaj straightened up, perhaps a little too much, and approached the ball head on. If he needed any reminder of the context he could always heed the reverberations of "Serbia, Serbia, fuck your sister" that had formed much of the day's soundtrack and had only just paused before he stepped up. The shot was low, far too close to Djordje Petrovic and firmly pawed to safety. The half-time whistle sounded immediately, members of Serbia's delegation making a beeline for the pitch to embrace their keeper. For Manaj, all that lingered was the frozen image of a moment he had failed to meet.

In the end this occasion managed to pass a bigger test, but only by the skin of its teeth and not without probable repercussions. A goalless draw was always likely to keep the peace and, given these sides' catastrophic meeting in Belgrade almost 11 years ago, the real measure of success was in its smooth completion. There were no drone-shaped holes in a rigorous security project; no battles raging into the small hours of what had been a close, sweltering, febrile night. Nobody could boast of having turned proceedings upside down, on or off the field.